


But The Storm Is A-Coming 'Cross The Hills Tonight

by soncnica



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Blood Magic, Blood and Gore, Blood and Torture, Competent Jared, Dark, Destiny, Dungeon, Explicit Language, Fantasy, Healing With Magic, Hero Jensen, Horse Impala, Hurt Jensen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Sex, Knight Jared, Knights - Freeform, Legends, M/M, Magic, Middle Ages, Mystery, No Disfigurement, No Sex, Pain, Protective Jared, Strong Jensen, Torture, Vomiting, Whipping, Wizard Jared, implied bottom Jensen, no one dies, reading minds of animals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-24
Updated: 2015-09-08
Packaged: 2018-04-16 07:53:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4617339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soncnica/pseuds/soncnica
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jared is King Dean Morgan’s knight. He is the one the King calls for whenever torture or punishment has to be done and Jared’s expertise is whipping. Jensen is his next victim. Or is he?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: I seriously only own the grammar/spelling mistakes. Everything else is NOT MINE! ALL IS FICTION. The title comes from a song called A bar in Amsterdam from the band KatzenJammer and does not belong to me.  
> A/N: I just wanted to write Jared whipping Jensen, is that so bad? Don’t answer that, LOL. And well, this is what I came up with. If you decide to read this story, just trust me, I know exactly where I’m going with this. Fear not and thank you!

_** ** _

   
  
Jared walked fast down the long hallway, torches lightning up the place even though the sun was shining directly into the hall, guards standing like statues every few feet; unmoving, silent, swords and spears and bows at the ready to strike down whoever would come uninvited to the King’s private rooms.  
   
He was like that once, standing there, counting down the seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years before he grew into the man that he was now. At twenty-eight he had seen things, did things that woke him up at night, drenched in cold sweat, tearing the sheet apart with his hands.  
  
But at day he was Jared, knight of the Dean Morgan’s kingdom.   
   
His shoes were making tapping noises on the marble floor, patterns of dragons mid-flight made out of Murano glass stretching up and down, left and right all over the floor, making him dizzy just by looking at it. Everything shone so brightly in the orange and red fire; nothing but the best for King Dean Morgan, nothing but the best no matter how it was gained.  
   
The long, black cloak he wore was hugging his calves at every step, swooshing in the wind his fast walk produced and smelling his own sweat from the long hot day that was already behind him... but he wasn't allowed to take the cloak off; it was his uniform, it showed his place in the court, kept him warm in the winter and too hot in the summer, but most importantly it kept the daggers he had hidden at the small of his back perfectly covered.  
   
The sword that was hanging by his right thigh was heavy and long, but his and he wouldn’t change it for nothing. It made him feel safe when the night seemed to descend on him, trying to swallow him up.  
He was good with it, more than good, perfect in every way imaginable and the blood he had spilled with the sharpness of it could be measured in thousands and thousands of gallons.  
It was forged at the shores of Lake Lash’as and when he first touched it, he knew. It spoke to him, _you’re mine_.  
   
There was a smell of fresh air that crawled through the hallway, tiptoeing on the Muran glass, afraid of breaking it, it seemed, but no one dared to close the huge windows framing the hall.  
He took a deep breath. It was summer, finally summer with its hot, humid air that made the long hair at the back of his neck curl up, his sweaty bangs poking at his eyes and cheeks.  
   
His right hand rose up to grab hold of his sword’s handle when he stopped before a huge wooden door with carvings of snakes strangling lions on the red cherry wood the doors were made off. It was a bloody scene, one that haunted Jared at night among all the other things that crawled in his mind.  
   
“Open it!” he snapped, not caring about the looks he got from the two men that were guarding the entrance. There was fear in those eyes and Jared was so used to it by now, seeing fear, that it made no impact on him. Not anymore. Not like it used to, because now, now everyone knew who he was.  
   
Everyone.  
   
They both lowered their heads and gripped the end of the lion’s tail that served as a handle, pushing the doors inward.  
   
“Yes, Sir.”  
The shorter of the two said and tried to hide the tremble in his voice, but didn’t do a good job because it was there. Loud and clear.  
   
Fear.  
   
When the door opened, the smell of strong perfume and weeks of sweat and grime slammed into him, making him almost stumble backwards with how strong the stench was. There was even a sharp smell of come in the air, that was probably just a left over from the last whore the King had in his bed.  
   
He’ll never understand these people, these people highest on the food chain… water was to be washed with and not just to sip when the taste of wine became too much. It was the most disgusting thing, even more disgusting that watching prisoners eat their own tongues when the hunger became too much for them to take.  
   
He loved washing himself, even if that did make him the freak in the house, but just the feeling of warm water all over his skin, washing away all the dirt and the strangeness of the day… made him feel alive.  
   
He took a deep breath, shook his head and entered, walking slowly towards the figure at the end of the large room.  
   
He pushed his cloak aside and his sword away from his body and went down on his left knee. Kneeling before the man that was his King came natural to him, but his fingers still itched for those daggers he had hidden on him.  
   
The man was eating grapes and moaning whenever the grape burst in his mouth and some juice ran down his salt ‘n’ pepper beard.  
   
Jared bowed his head out of respect and disgust.  
   
“King Dean Morgan.” He said to the shiny, chestnut floor, wincing at the words and tightening the hand holding his sword.  
   
“Jared.”  
   
He raised his head with the invitation and looked at his King putting another grape into his mouth, holding it between his teeth before tugging it into his mouth with his tongue: “We got him.”  
   
Jared could hear the grape pop when the King bit into it and swallowed down the grimace when the King laughed out loud, making some grape juice spill down his beard again.  
   
They’ve got him.  
   
The King’s laughter followed Jared when he practically ran down the hallway.

 

  
 

 

 

The stairs leading down to the dungeon were illuminated by torches holding on to the wall, the stone slippery and full of straw that tried to soak up all the moisture but failed and just lay there in the far corners, moldy and defeated.  
There were rats running up and down the stairs on their tiny little feet and Jared kicked them down the stairs while he walked, careful and slow. He was used to these stairs, used to them all too well.  
   
He glided his hand on the wall, the stone there as damp as the stairs, covered with moss and dirt.  
   
He stopped at the bottom of the staircase and turned left, scrunching up his nose at the smell, but the smell wasn’t as bad as it was in the King’s quarters. This was a smell that he was used to; blood, piss, shit and vomit, all smells that made even the toughest men’s eyes water and puke their guts out in the far corners of the dungeon.  
   
But he was used to it, because he had spent his squire years in here, seeing things no child ever should see. Whenever he wasn’t needed he sneaked down here and had been trained by a man, he would forever look up to. Even in death.  
   
“Jared.”  
The voice came from the darkness a few feet away and Jared smiled out a: “Louis.” back in greeting.  
   
A tall, skinny man emerged from the shadows, nothing on his face or body indicating his age, but Jared knew and kept it a secret.   
   
Louis’ strong hand gripped Jared’s forearm, making him grab Louis’ back, getting his fingers into the moldy, soft fabric of the man's shirt. They smiled at one another, a smile just an upward tug of lips, no joy or happiness behind it.  
   
A man screamed somewhere and Jared ignored it, just like Louis had taught him so many years ago, teaching him how to deafen his mind and ears to the things happening in the dungeon.  
   
Nothing made Jared flinch anymore.  
   
Nothing.  
   
“Where’s he?” he let go of the man’s arm.  
   
“Yesss, yesss. He’sss down ‘ere,” Jared followed Luis’ finger pointing further down the hall, “left at tha corn’r.”  
   
Jared nodded once, just a small acknowledgment and started walking, kicking away rats and mice and straw that blocked his way.

 

  
 

 

 

The first thing he saw was a man’s back, vertebrae pushed out almost obscenely. The skin was glistering with sweat in the low, flickering light of the torches, and dirt flew like a river down that back stopping – probably - until it hit the floor. But Jared wasn’t able to see that, because the man was huddled in the corner, right beneath a small barred window, naked as the day he was born, clutching his legs to his chest, only presenting his backside to the world. There were two guards standing by the wall, keeping an eye on the man and looking a bit green around the edges and with eyes so watery, Jared was surprised they could actually see anything.  
   
“Leave.” He said, voice strong, an order in one word even if he wasn’t really trying.  
   
“Sir, we was order’d not to leave ‘im alon’.” One of the guards said, Jared wasn’t sure which one, because his eyes were glued to the prisoner.  
   
He turned his head towards the guards so fast something in his neck cracked: “Leave now!” his voice boomed through the dungeon and the guards flinched, lowered their heads and walked away quickly.  
   
Jared loved the power he had around here. People would bow their heads and look at the floor whenever they would pass him, they would tremble and shake whenever they’d speak to him and they would run away if he only said one word.  
   
He ran his hand through his hair and stepped closer towards the prisoner, his sword and a silver, snake shaped necklace tying his cloak around his neck clinking around him; a noise so familiar to him that he didn’t even notice it anymore, but the man did, if the shiver that Jared could see run up the man’s back was any indication.  
   
He knew that he shouldn’t have come to the dungeon fully armed – some of the prisoners still had some strength in them – but he was fast and good with both his hands and weapons and no one would have been able to do him any harm.  
   
He stopped, the tips of his shoes inches from the man’s sides and crouched down, being careful that his knees didn’t touch either the floor or the man’s skin.  
   
It was foolish of the man to have his back towards the door, showing everyone his most vulnerable spot, not giving himself a chance to fight  
   
He looked around, knowing that this place had ears and eyes in places no one could even imagine… but he knew he was alone. No one would dare to interrupt his time with the prisoner but he still had to be careful.  
   
He placed his hand, gently, softly, slowly on the man’s right side, making his fingers comfortable in the dips between the man’s ribs.  
   
He squeezed the hard, shivery side, skin wet and hot underneath his palm and whispered: “Jensen.”

**TBC...**


	2. Chapter 2

The pale, glistering skin under his hand trembled; sweat breaking out and slicking his palm, Jensen’s breathing speeding up, rising his side up and down. He tightened his hold and moved his hand here and there, digging his fingertips into the softness of Jensen’s stomach and his thumb into the hardness of the man’s lower back.  
   
“Jensen…” he whispered again, trying to get the man to make some noise besides the harsh panting he was doing now.  
   
He tugged; trying to make Jensen roll over and look at him, see his eyes and what the state of the rest of his body was in.  
   
He didn’t know what had been done to Jensen when he’d been caught and he didn’t want to injure the man more.  
   
Not yet.  
   
He tugged harder, knowing he was leaving bruises, but Jensen was a strong man, muscles defined so roughly and clearly all over his body; strong shoulders and legs, flat stomach with muscles carved into it, arms so strong, that could pick up a mountain. Years of fighting; sword and hands, would do that to a man.  
   
Jensen’s body rolled over slowly, making Jared shift a bit back so that he was able to look at the man’s eyes.  
   
They shone green. Watery green.  
   
“Jens…”  
   
“How much?”  
   
Jared startled and frowned at the question that sounded almost ripped out of Jensen’s throat; it was like someone poured pebbles into his mouth and ordered him to speak.  
   
There was spit and vomit crusted at the sides of the man’s mouth, eyes bright, pupils looking okay, breathing a bit fast, but alright, the heartbeat under Jared’s fingers steady and fast, but not too fast.  
   
There was some dirt on Jensen’s face, but no blood and no blood was a good thing.  
   
Jared tightened the grip he had on Jensen’s side, keeping the man down to the floor when he whispered: “Sixty.”  
   
Jensen nodded, his hair sweeping the floor.  
   
“When?” he croaked out.  
   
“Three hours, then two days later you’ll be hanged.”  
   
Jensen closed his eyes and didn’t open them when his cracked lips whispered: “They’ll come get me.”  
   
Jared smiled: “We’ll be waiting, Jensen.” and ran his hand up and down Jensen’s stomach, fingers brushing the coarse hair at the base of Jensen’s cock.  
   
He wanted to touch so badly, licking his lips in hunger for it, but then Jensen whimpered this pathetic little sound that made Jared snap his eyes back up to the man’s face.  
   
“Let them come.”  
   
He let go of Jensen, who rolled back to his side, grabbing his knees and pulling his legs back up to his heaving chest.  
   
Jared leaned over, covering the naked body with his black cloak, submerging them both into the darkness where no eyes and no ears could come and whispered into Jensen’s ear: “I’ll be back in three hours, okay, you just take it easy, alright?”  
   
Jensen sighed, a relaxed sigh that made Jared close his eyes and breathe in.  
   
“Everything’s gonna be okay, just trust me.”  
   
He stroked Jensen’s lower back, finger massaging the man’s tailbone, but he didn’t go further with his fingers… couldn’t.  
   
“I gotcha…” he ran his hand up, fingers a soft pressure up Jensen’s spine to his nape and stopped to hold the shuddering man there.  
   
“Please, just trust me.”  
   
If there was a nod, Jared didn’t see it, but he did feel Jensen lean back and relax into his hand.  
   
He squeezed once then let go.  
   
He rearranged his long cloak and the sword, looked down at the man and said: “Try to get some sleep.”  
   
“Fuck you.”  
   
He smiled: “Yeah…” and walked away leaving Jensen to curl up even more and maybe find some sleep and dreams, because those would soon become elusive.

  
   


  
   
“Louis!” he yelled, knowing that his voice could be carried far in this stone cold dungeon, and that the man would hear him wherever he was.  
And he did, running towards Jared as fast as his legs could carry him.  
   
“Yesss, yesss, Jared, Sssir.”  
   
Jared smiled and put his hand on the man’s shoulder: “Louis, how many times do I have to tell you not to call me Sir? ‘s just Jared, okay?”  
Louis bowed his head for a second and then raised it up: “Yesss, yesss, ’m sorwy.”  
   
Louis was a… peculiar man; sweet and shy at times, but when he tortured souls his eyes became hard as stone and fire ignited in them and whenever he could crack a bone in half, his lips turned up into a smile, showing his three rotten teeth… the only teeth he had.  
   
“Alright, good. I’ll come pick the prisoner up in three hours. Make sure he’ll be ready.”  
   
“Yesss, yesss, of couwsss’.”  
   
“Good, good.”  
   
He tapped Louis’ shoulder in a ‘see you later’ kinda way and left the pungent, raw smell of the dungeon to swirl around his cloak when he walked away.  
   
But he’d be back.  
   
In three hours, he’d be back.

  
   


  
   
He checked the stone pillar; ran his hand all over it, looking for anything out of the ordinary, he scraped off some dried almost half baked flesh off of the surface with his fingers, flicking it to the floor. Soon Jensen’s flesh would be there.  
   
The top of the pillar was a dragon made of oak wood; wings spread wide, casting shadows each side of the pillar, providing the crowds that stood there with some shade. The dragon’s head with eyes made of green Muran glass that sparkled whenever the sun hit at just the right angle, was raised up high, looking forward, right to the spot where the King’s chair was. Out of its open mouth a tongue hung; a long, slim thing whose tip nearly touched the ground, but didn’t, because its purpose was to hold a small, iron ring where he had to tie a rope to… soon Jensen’s hands would hang from there, stretching his back perfectly for his whip.  
   
He checked the ropes, wanting them to be fresh, not used, wanting them to be without any blood and strong. They had to be strong.  
   
He checked his whip; made by the old masters on the shores of Lake Lash’as... it was a special whip, one he had never used before. Handle made of light wood, painted black with sigils carved into it, sigils that would protect him and whoever found himself on the other side of the handle. The lash was long, the tip of it thin and his whole body was used to how to handle it. No stroke would fall somewhere where it was not needed and no stroke would do damage in places where it shouldn’t.  
   
He was a master. He was taught well.  
   
He checked the sky and the sun and the dirt around the tall pillar, getting rid of some dog shit and rotten vegetables with his foot. He checked the people around him and how they ignored him completely, which suited him just fine.  
He was a respected man, cruel some might say, some who didn’t know him.  
   
The sun beat the land heavily, the sunbeams hot and unforgiving, punching the yard where the big spectacle will go down.  
   
People were rushing to get all their business done, before the bells on the old church tower would strike five in the afternoon. The anticipation was so strong in the air, Jared could practically smell it, hell he could’ve probably cut it with his sword… it was like a solid string connecting every person walking in the square.  
   
Jensen Ackles. Caught.  
   
He heard words that people whispered behind his back when he did his preparations, he heard the people gasp at the mention of Jensen’s name.  
If they only knew who he really was, if they really knew the real Jensen Ackles, Jared thought.  
If they really knew, they’d cry and beg for him to be saved.  
   
They would.  
   
Jensen Ackles, thief, murderer, rapist, scavenger, kidnapper, enslaver of women and children, warrior out for a taste of blood. Cannibal.  
Jared had to smirk at that last one. If people only knew what kinda ‘flesh’ Jensen liked to eat and what kinda ‘blood’ he liked to swallow down, they’d faint or go to their priest and buy penance for even thinking of such things.  
   
His dick twitched just thinking about Jensen on his knees… fuck!  
But he couldn’t get hard now, he had work to do.  
   
Lots of work.

  
   
  
 

Impal was ready, the huge black Friesian stallion all saddled up and ready to go, even if it didn’t really seem like that, because he was happily munching on an apple Jared gave him.  
He stroked the horse’s back and whispered softly: “You be ready, you hear me? You be ready when I call and you’ll get a lot more apples, okay? Good boy, you’re a good boy.”  
   
He left the horse to his apples and hay, trusting him to hear when he’d call and went to his quarters.  
   
There was still half an hour to go.

  
   
  
 

His sword and daggers were sharp, could cut stone in half probably, Impal was ready, he had homemade vinegar that he stole from the castle’s kitchen and a lot of ripped shirts that he grew out of a while back, wine and beer, some food. Water… he’d find on his way.  
   
He was dressed appropriately, like a knight of King Dean Morgan’s house should be; black linen shirt that hung loosely down to his mid-thigh, black loose pants and a black cloak with a hood that felt heavy on his back. He checked his purse that hung from his belt… it was heavy with salt.  
   
All black, good for the cold nights even in the summer, good to hide in the darkness, but too hot and too heavy for a summer’s day. But to dress otherwise would just get him in trouble; King Dean Morgan was a ruthless man, he never took a ‘no’ for an answer. So he dressed like he had to, even if he sweated like a pig and his shirt became soaking wet as soon as he even stepped out of his room.  
   
He took a deep breath.  
   
He was ready. He was. He just hoped Jensen was too.


	3. Chapter 3

The smell started to crawl up his nostrils as soon as he entered the dungeon. He kicked a rat out of his way and it crashed into the wall. Dead.  
   
Louis was wiping his hands in a piece of red cloth, grinning like a maniac with fire in his eyes and Jared knew his friend just had the time of his life.  
He just hoped that the blood on Louis’ hands wasn’t from Jensen.  
   
“See you’ve been busy.”  
   
Louis looked down at his hands: “Vewy.”  
   
“’s he ready?”  
   
“’sss time yet?”  
   
“Yes.”  
   
Louis sighed and stuffed the cloth into the pocket of his pants: “Time sssur’ fliesss when you hasss fun, knew that boy?”  
   
Yes, he knew that. Knew that very well.  
   
He nodded, hiding the impatience that was starting to shimmer in his veins.  
   
“He’sss ready ‘n’ the g’ardsss too.”  
   
“Don’t need ‘em. Gonna do this myself.”  
   
“Jared, holds a minute thewe sss’n.”  
   
“Louis, don’t…” _don’t disobey me, don’t get in my way, don’t make me have to kill you._  
His hand was already creeping slowly behind his back to grab hold of the dagger there, but Louis’ shoulders dropped and Jared knew the man would fold.  
   
“Ehhh’ll sssee ya out. I’ll make sssu’e yur whip’ll be ready for ya.”  
   
“You go do that.”  
   
He started to walk towards where Jensen was, ignoring Louis’ mumbles about sick son’s of bitches who have to do everything themselves and not giving others any chance to play.  
Jared wanted to puke, but he set his face into hard lines, collected and emotionless, cruelty in his eyes when he approached the two guards.  
   
“Leave.”  
   
The guards didn’t even breathe when they collected their weapons and left.  
   
Jared shook his head.  
   
Morons.

  
   
  
 

Jensen was now a shivering mess on the floor, still curled up, still showing his back to whoever was standing at the entrance to his ‘cell’.  
   
No one would have touched him; the guards, Louis, not really. Jared was sure of it because they all knew that Jared loved to be the first one to bleed people who found themselves tied to his pillar and under his whip.  
   
One guard had made a mistake once, touching a prisoner that was Jared’s… that guard was food for the worms now.  
   
He walked to the man and crouched down, placing his hand on Jensen’s side again, just like before.  
   
“Hey,” He whispered and flinched when Jensen did, “’s just me.”  
   
“’m not deaf, could hear your crap clink miles away.”  
   
“Yeah, keep holding to that feistiness.”  
   
“Screw you.”  
   
Jensen’s voice was hoarse, skin soaking wet and cold to the touch.  
   
Jared ran his hand up towards Jensen’s armpit, then down the man’s thigh, up again around to get under Jensen’s legs to his chest and stomach. His hand was hot, he was always too hot and he wanted to give some of that heat to the man lying before him, wanting to create some friction to make the shivers stop running up and down Jensen’s body.  
   
He didn’t stop touching when he said: “You ready to go?”  
   
“’s that an actual question or just a polite order, because the answer is no.”  
   
Jared smiled: “Take it as you wish, man, but you know what it really is.”  
   
“Shit.”  
   
Jared’s hand stopped, fingers splayed wide across Jensen’s lower back, feeling the man lean into his touch.  
   
“I don’t want to.” Jensen whispered, broken and fragile voice that made Jared close his eyes and sigh: “I know.”  
   
A shudder ran up Jensen’s back, one that Jared couldn’t stop, not even with the heat of his hand.  
   
“Jensen, you have to trust me. Hey come on, turn around, let me look at ya.”  
   
He put pressure on Jensen’s side, trying to make the man roll over, turn so that they would be able to look each other in the eye, speak to each other without words too.  
   
Jensen did; rolled over, letting his hand fall between Jared’s spread knees, gripping at Jared’s pants by his thigh.  
   
Now Jared shuddered and clenched his jaw. He had to stay strong. Had to stay at the top here.  
   
“I do, but… sixty?”  
   
Jared wanted to hit his head on the wall and die bleeding on the floor. It would be much easier.  
Sixty was the lowest he could get from the King, who wanted a hundred and sixty, but Jared calmly explained that so many lashes would kill Jensen before the fun would have even started.  
That had the King rethink hard about his order.  
Jared knew exactly how to play the King, knew the King better than Dean Morgan knew himself and it was easy to get sixty out of him. It was like taking candy from a dead man.  
   
“The king’ll know if I do less.”  
   
“Shit, shit, shit.”  
   
“Listen to me, listen… sixty is not that much, okay? It’ll end before it’ll even start and you know it.”  
   
Jared was lying and they both knew it.  
   
“Shit.”  
   
“Yeah, you said that already.”  
   
Jensen licked his lips: “Shit.”  
   
Jared smiled a sad smile: “Yeah… come on, we have to go.”  
   
He pulled the man apart; rearranging his limbs so that he was able to pull him up on his own feet. Shaky as they were.  
   
Jensen felt weak in his arms, weak as a kitten.  
   
“What did they do to you?”  
   
“You care?”  
   
That one stung.  
   
“I can kill ‘em.”  
   
Jensen smirked: “No, you can’t. Not anymore.”  
   
That felt… good actually.  
   
He picked up a pair of pants that were lying forgotten in the corner, where whoever brought Jensen in threw them to wait for just this occasion.  
   
“Come on, let’s put these pants on you, can’t have the kids see your junk.”  
   
“Yeah, but they can see the flesh fall from my back.”  
   
Jared cringed.  
   
“Don’t even go there.”  
   
“Don’t wanna go anywhere, really.”  
   
“Jensen…”  
   
“Don’t…”  
   
Jared bit his lip: “Fine.” and helped Jensen step into the pants: “Lean on me,” tying them with a string, brushing his knuckles on Jensen’s dick.  
   
He wanted… to touch more, lick and suck, taste and have.  
   
He cleared his throat and whispered: “We good?” into Jensen’s hair when the man tried to stand fully on his feet.  
   
“Never been better.”  
   
“Good, now just pretend that you hate my guts and scream a few times, when we’ll go out to the square.”  
  
“Don’t think that’ll be a problem, because I do hate you right now,” he groaned, “so fucking much.”  
   
“Yeah okay, work with that anger.”  
   
Jensen huffed out a ‘fuck you’ that was muted by Jared’s neck, gripped the hood of Jared’s cloak with his shaky hand and leaned on the knight.  
   
They hadn’t made a step before Jensen whispered: “Jared?”  
   
“Yeah?”  
   
“I hate this… I hate this so much.”  
   
“I know, just… man up. Remember what I taught you, okay? Just... just ignore everything, see what you wanna see and just… just trust me here, okay man?”  
   
Jensen tightened the fingers that were loosing themselves in the soft, velvety fabric of Jared’s cloak: “I trust you.”  
   
“And that’s all you need to do, alright?”  
   
“Mhm…”  
   
“Everything else is on me, okay?”

  
   


  
   
Jensen was quiet all the way down the dungeon hallway… it was a tight fit for them, the walls closing in on them, the darkness becoming oily and thick and Jared was grateful for it, because that meant that whoever was watching them, couldn’t see how he held Jensen. Close to him. Too close to him.  
   
Jensen shuffled his feet slowly, leaning heavily on Jared’s side, gripping the soft velvet of the knight’s hood with fingers numb from fear.  
   
He lost his balance once, when he stepped on something with his bare feet, something soft and slippery. They stopped for a few seconds, just long enough for two deep breaths and then moved on.  
   
They could both hear men whimpering and mumbling, some groaning out words that made no sense to either of them… men already gone insane, gone and locked themselves in their minds… some of that was on Jared too. He had some of the men in the dungeon under the crack of his whip a few days ago… tore flesh off their backs and made then scream and pass out.  
   
Made one die.  
   
He swallowed down the bile already rising up his throat… he knew that he would never be able to erase that part of his life, no matter how many penances he buys from the priests, because God… God doesn’t forgive things like that.  
   
“Jared, ‘s all ready fo’ ya.”  
   
He pushed Jensen away from him, making the man trip over his feet, at the sound of Louis’ voice coming further down the hall, and he just hoped that the man didn’t see anything, because he’d really hate to kill the only friend he really had here in the castle.  
   
Jensen stumbled away, but Jared caught him just in time, before the man could fall on his side, probably crack some ribs in the process and pushed him forward, back to chest, like a guard leading a prisoner to his fate. This way, Jensen would be able to lean on him if his legs would give under his nerves.  
   
“Louis, we’re coming.”  
   
He put his hand on Jensen’s back and pushed him forward, slowly and whispered: “Easy.” on Jensen’s nape. 

  
   


  
   
The shouting and cheers of people that were waiting in the main square was becoming louder and louder closer they stumbled to the door that lead from the dungeons to the square and Jared knew that all the muscles in Jensen’s body wanted to fight… turn around, hit and kick and run.  
   
But he knew that Jensen wouldn’t do that. Not now. Not so close to freedom.  
   
The guards at the door wore serious expressions, but Jared knew better. They were anxious, the thrill of watching a man get whipped already running through their systems.  
   
He wanted to kill them. With his bare hands, just… grip their heads, make a fast turn and snap their necks. But instead he pushed at Jensen: “Go.” making the man stumble and almost fall on his nose.  
   
Jared winced deep in his mind, but didn’t show any feelings on his face.  
   
This was his job, this was what he did, this was what he was good at, this was what he was trained for.  
   
He had to be at the top of his game to pull this off. He had to be.  
   
“Open the door, you fools.”  
He snapped and pushed Jensen through the open door, right into the hot afternoon sun that was still relentlessly beating up the dirt floor.  
   
“Walk!”  
   
He kept his eyes on Jensen’s back, muscles locked up so tight, skin stretched and soaking wet with a few bruises on his sides… someone had touched him, someone had touched Jensen before he got to him… he saw red for a while, but took a deep breath and walked after Jensen towards the pillar, where life or death would be decided.  
   
The loud cheers almost knocked him off his feet when they fully stepped into the main square, and if he wouldn’t have been used to it, he would have fallen on his ass.  
   
But he was used to it. This was his home. This square was a place he spend a lot of time on, spilled a lot of blood and excited the masses into an almost catatonic state with how – and this is something the people said – beautifully he could’ve whipped a person.  
   
He closed his eyes… it was just his job, a way towards his future. Nothing else.

  
   


  
   
He nudged Jensen towards the pillar, wanting so badly to just be able to run away, grab Jensen and run.  
   
The crowd was going crazy, whistles and screaming and yelling words Jared was pretty sure would need a lot of money to the priest to make the sin of them go away.  
   
He ignored it all. The heat of the sun, the noise, the sand underneath his shoes, the cloak that made him sweat buckets… he ignored it all and hoped Jensen did too.

  
   


  
   
He pushed Jensen to the pillar, ignoring a low grunt that came from the man and grabbed the rope he had tied to a small ring above Jensen’s head, just a few hours ago.  
   
“Hands…”  
   
He plastered himself to Jensen’s shaking back, giving the man some support, a hard chest to lean on and Jensen took the offer, leaning heavily back, relaxing completely.  
   
“You’re gonna be okay.” he whispered softy.  
   
He grabbed Jensen’s forearms and lifted the man’s arms, stretching them up as far as they would go, tying them by their wrists, making sure the knots were secure enough; not tying too tight and not too loose. He didn’t want Jensen to hurt himself by rubbing his wrists raw and he didn’t want Jensen to dislocate his shoulder if he should pass out.  
   
He leaned closer to Jensen’s ear while still tying the knots and whispered, for their ears only, hiding his moving lips with his long bangs: “If you need to puke, don’t fight it, just let it go, okay. If you piss yourself or shit yourself, don’t worry. If you pass out, I’m gonna have to pour water on you to wake you up, so try to hold on as long as you can. Don’t forget to breathe and if you need to scream, just do it, alright? Don’t hold anything in, it’ll just make you feel worse.”  
   
“Shit, shit, shit…” Jensen whimpered.  
   
“Shhh… quiet.”  
   
The knots were tied perfectly, but his hand lingered on Jensen’s for a second too long and he could hear the King’s voice over all the other people’s voices; deep and booming, calling out: “Move it, Jared!!”  
   
He called back: “Yes, my Lord!!”  
   
The words burned his mouth.

  
   


  
   
He pulled a piece of a shirt out of his pocket, a shirt he had grown out of three years ago but wanted to… he just wanted to.  
   
“Open up.”  
   
The look he got from Jensen when he raised his head up to look at him made his heart drop down to his feet, but this was what he did. All the time and he couldn’t stop now. Not now when it was most important.  
   
“Ackles! Open your mouth!”  
   
And that was when things went to shit.  
   
“Nononono, no,” Jensen started to shake his head left and right, fighting the rope that held him secure, bucking up and squirming away, trying to escape from Jared at his back, from the crowd all around them, from the pillar and the rope, screaming, “no, NO!!!”  
   
“Ackles!!!”  
   
If the King’s voice could carry through the crowd, booming like a cannonball, then Jared’s voice could silence the crowd; make everyone shut their mouth in fear of what he would do to them.  
   
Jensen stilled. Everyone stilled. Life on the square held its breath.  
   
And Jared smiled, because he knew, he knew that tone of voice made Jensen compliant every time, be it whispered or yelled. It worked every time.  
   
“Open your damn mouth!”  
   
Jensen did and Jared wanted to touch him, to reassure him that everything would really be alright, to stop fighting and just… get this over with.  
   
He slipped the fabric into Jensen’s mouth: “Bite down,” feeling the man’s teeth grip the fabric: “Good, ‘s good. Now keep your tongue under it, don’t worry about getting your spit all over ya, we’ll clean that up later. And you can puke, just let it all flow out to the floor.”  
   
He wanted to lean forward and kiss the stretched lips better, but couldn’t, because more than a hundred pairs of eyes were on them and one wrong move… they would both be dead before they would draw in their next breath.  
   
“Sh’t, Ja’ed… sh’tt…” there was panic and a silent sob in Jensen’s muffled voice that Jared tried to ignore.  
   
He tied the shirt behind Jensen’s head, whispering: “Go somewhere in your head, just… go. I’ll bring you back later, I swear, just trust me, I swear.”  
   
Then he turned around and walked away.


	4. Chapter 4

The handle of the whip was light in his hand, he thought it would be heavy; it was an object with which he’d cause pain, cause blood to boil out of the skin, it was an object that would push things in motion… but it didn’t feel heavy. It felt familiar like no other thing did, it was soothing as nothing else was, his hands were made for this, formed to cradle the whip like air cradles a bird.  
His hands weren’t made for the sword he was forced to have, he found that out some time ago; his sword always felt too heavy and too long, but he was still good with it. Better than anyone he’d ever met. But this whip… this whip was his, unique, special, one that he himself brought to the castle.  
One that King Dean Morgan knew nothing about, one that only Louis knew of but the man would never tell.  
   
The sun was hot, the heat melting his skin and turning his hair into a wet mess… there was no wind, there was nothing that would chase away the smell of dead animals and rotten fruits and the rancid breaths of people who were waiting for him to start.  
   
He gripped the whip tighter, checked its lash, checked that it was as smooth as it could be, checked his sword and its position, checked his mind… and breathed out.  
   
The crowd was all murmurs and soft words now, and Jared knew that it was because it didn’t want to miss one crack the lash would make in the air, just before it would hit Jensen’s back.  
   
Sick people, they were. Sick in their heads, sick in their minds, sick all over. Sick to go pray in Churches so corrupted, it made his teeth rot just thinking about it. Sick to find joy in watching other people beg for mercy and bleed until their death.  
   
Sick.  
   
But so was he, because help him God, he did enjoy this. Whip in his hand and a bare back to paint. Those cracks that could be heard in the air just before the lash hit skin… he loved it. He'd been trained for it. Trained to be the best at this, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t flinch when a man screamed and a piece of flesh fell off his back.  
   
But he couldn’t show what he felt to anyone. That’s what nights were for. Shaking and sweating in his bed, the sounds of _crackcrackcrack_ in his head sometimes so loud he screamed just to shut them up.  
   
He shook his head. No more of that from now on. From now on, he had other things to do. A better life to go to, a life that was meant for him from the start. A life where all of this… would be forgiven.  
   
He looked at Jensen first, how his back rose up and down like he had just run a hundred miles, shaky shoulders and hands gripping the rope tight.  
   
_Hold on Jensen, just hold on._  
   
Then he looked at his King who waved his hand and nodded once, giving a clear sign to start.  
   
_You’re going down King, you son of a bitch._  
   
He nodded, looked back at the sun illuminated skin, drew back his hand and made the whip fly through the hot air with such speed that the lash was invisible in the sunlight.  
   
Crack.  
   
Jensen screamed even with the shirt tucked into his mouth, and Jared was sure that it was more from shock than pain. He hoped it was like that, because if it was pain, then Jensen would pass out sooner than would be… commendable.  
He knew that the first lick of the whip on tensed skin doesn’t really hurt… it feels more like touching snow for too long… an icy pain that spreads all over you and leaves you breathless until the next lick of the whip.  
   
Crack.  
   
Crack.  
   
Crack.  
   
Four quick strokes in and Jensen’s back was already red, but there was no blood yet. It just looked like a cat, big cat, had scratched him and left claw marks on his back.     
   
Crack.  
   
Crack.  
   
Crack.  
   
Three more and blood started to bubble up to the surface, spilling out from the welts, running slowly down to the waistband of Jensen’s brown pants.  
   
Crack.  
   
Crack.  
   
Blood started to drip onto the ground from places where the wounds were deeper; big drops of red liquid, a small stream running from a deep wound on his left shoulder blade.  
   
Blood hit the ground. Spilling onto the sand. Jared was sure he felt the land tremble and shake; everything aligning into its place.  
   
He released a breath he never knew he held… it was peace that enveloped him.  
   
He could do this. He could finish this. He would finish this. For the sake of ‘em all.  
   
Crack.  
   
Ten strokes and Jensen’s back wasn’t pale anymore anywhere, his shoulders shaking, arms trembling, hands gripping the rope above his head that hung unmoving between his shoulders, but not a sound escaped his throat. Not even a whimper.  
   
_Good man_ , Jared through and cracked the whip twenty more times in quick succession, wanting to get over with this as soon as possible, because there was no way – this needing to be done or not - that he’d be able to stare at that perfect, freckled skin being torn to shreds for much longer.  
   
Things were starting to fall into place… and he needed to finish this.  
Now.   
   
Crack.  
   
And Jensen screamed when a piece of flesh got torn away and flew right off his back when Jared raised his whip back to get momentum for another stroke.  
   
The symbols carved into the whip’s handle were burning at Jared’s palm, telling him _itsalrightitsalrightitsalright you can do this, you can do this, you have to do this, you have to do this_ the runes pure magic flowing into his palm, up his arm and into his mind, reminding him that this wasn’t just anyone, that this was Jensen.  
   
That this was his best friend.  
That this was the hero that the old songs sung about, the songs written by poets who walked this land long before King Dean Morgan was a thought in his parent’s head.  
   
That this was Jensen Ackles, the hero who would save them all. The hero whose blood needed to be spilled on the land by a man born of magic.  
 

 

  
   
Crack.  
   
And Jensen’s body sagged down, chest colliding with the stone fast and hard, a small grunt spilling from his lips. His body slid down the pillar like all strings had been cut. Knees giving in, shoulders stretching, back bleeding, torn to pieces.  
   
_Jensen… no…_  
   
He swallowed down the anger he felt at Jensen, because of the man giving up this soon. It was too soon, he thought that Jensen knew better, hid better in his head.  
He sighed and put the whip slowly back on a wooden desk that had been placed at his right side. It was full of bird crap and in any other circumstances he’d tell Louis to get his job done better next time… but there would be no next time. Not anymore.  
   
He took long steps towards Jensen, picking up a bucket of cold water along the way. He had poured water in the bucket himself and he knew that the water was clean and cool, that nothing in it would hurt Jensen in any way. He knew that no one tampered with it, that everyone avoided things that were his, because they didn’t want his anger be directed towards them.  
   
They avoided him like plague.  
 

 

  
   
He stopped before Jensen, his feet sinking into the sand surrounding the pillar and he could feel it hot and moving beneath his shoes. The land was woken up by the purity of Jensen’s blood. The land was becoming alive. Finally the dark ages would come to an end.  
   
Finally.  
 

 

  
   
Jensen’s back was a horrible display of blood and flesh, some places a small flash of bone could be seen and they still had thirty-eight strokes to go.  
   
He breathed and ignored the sight. There was nothing he could do about it right then, absolutely nothing.  
 

 

  
   
He raised the bucket high up…  
   
_‘m sorry…_  
   
… and poured the water over his friend’s head in a fast move, crashing onto Jensen’s sweaty hair like a waterfall, cascading down his front. He tried to avoid hitting Jensen’s back and he mostly succeeded, but there was still some of the water that hit the open skin, making Jensen wail.  
   
Jared wanted to cut his ears off, because the sound was pure pain.  
   
_‘m sorry, ‘m so sorry…_  
   
But he couldn’t stop now, he couldn’t make the King suspicious, he couldn’t risk this falling apart just because of how he felt.  
   
How he wished he could be in Jensen’s place. How he wished the magic in him would be stronger. How he wished the magic in the whip would make the whip stop touching Jensen’s skin… he wished for many things.  
   
So he yelled: “Wake up!” because that was the only thing he could do.  
   
Jensen groaned and blinked his eyes open when Jared gripped him by his hair and raised him up back into position, whispering: “Easy, easy, you’re doing great, just breathe.”  
   
“Get on your feet!” he tugged at the hair, making Jensen stand up again, “Up!”  
   
The crowd loved it, loved how he showed who the man with the power was, showed them how to take a person apart completely so that he wouldn’t be able to get back together again.  
   
He let go of the man’s drenched hair: “Keep your head up!!” and walked back to his whip, the symbols on the handle glowing dark blue for his eyes only and he thought _I know, I know_.  
   
Crack.  
   
The symbols soothed him with _it is going to be alright_.  
 

 

  
   
Jensen’s back wasn’t a back anymore, not really the way a human’s back was supposed to look like. It was flayed, red, fire red; heat was coming off of it in waves, like it sometimes did off of the land when the sun was angry to the extreme.  
   
The pants that hung low on his hips were soaked with piss and blood that was already starting to harden in the heat of the afternoon sun. The sand around the pillar was splattered with tiny and big drops of blood and some flesh that had fallen down… and that was gonna be left there for the birds and the mice and the dogs to devour.  
   
There was still a piece of flesh hanging on a loose thread from Jensen’s back and when Jared cracked the whip once more, that, too fell down to the ground.  
   
The crowd went insane, people jumping up and down to see better, mothers trying to hide the eyes of their children, but the kids kept on pushing away those persistent hands _let me see, mommy_ , _let me see_ , could be heard from Jared’s left.  
   
But his eyes were on his friend; nothing else existed but Jensen. His friend who screamed and screamed and screamed until he started choking and puked all over himself again, nothing but air and spit running from his mouth, and gagging noises that almost made Jared spin around and crack the whip in King Dean Morgan’s direction.  
   
Crack.  
   
Last one.  
   
The very last one.  
   
Sixty strokes.  
   
And then a flaming arrow hit the top wooden part of the pillar, hitting the dragon right in its chest and the crowd started screaming a different tune.


	5. Chapter 5

The sun was burning, even for so late in the afternoon, scorching hot, making the crowd of people around him seem dizzy and muted, hoarse screams of pain all around him making his skin tight. He couldn’t place the voices to any faces because they were all a mist of fast movement in the corner of his eyes.  
   
He was sweating buckets under his cloak but he wouldn’t dare take it off, for as soon as the sun would set, the air would cool down and the land would lose itself in the frost. Summer days were so hot, sometimes, you could get blisters just from being in the sun for too long, but summer nights were so cold you could get frost bite.  
   
Jared was sure that once Jensen would be healed and ready… the summer would turn into just hot and the nights would turn into just warm.

  
   


  
   
There was screaming and wailing all around him, flashes of burning arrows shooting like stars near his head - _swooshswooshwsoosh_ \- clinks of metal on metal, swords and daggers and yells of defeat. Sounds of bloody swords being pushed through or ripped out of someone’s flesh.   
   
And death. There was death nearby, surrounding him, not as close as it had been when he was ankle deep in mud and blood on battlefields, but close enough that he could still smell it. Death had a certain smell to it, smell of smoke where there was no fire, floating in places where it appeared.  
   
But no man would die under his hands this time. No man would if things went as he imagined them go.  
   
The handle of the whip turned ice cold in his hand, the symbols sighing out tiredly in victory now that their job was done and he rolled it up and put it behind the belt of his pants.  
   
He ran towards Jensen while pulling out a dagger – a sharp, silver thing he got from Jensen on his twelfth birthday – to cut through the rope that was still keeping his friend immobile. There were people fleeing all around the town square, falling like flies under the arrows and swords, but he only had his eyes on one person. Only one human being in all this chaos that he could see through the sweat that ran into his eyes, burning them, the sting of it a pain he welcomed.   
   
He cut the rope; a quick, silent cut.  
   
It fell without noise to the bloody sand and so did Jensen.    
   
Crumbled to his knees like there wasn’t a bone in his body to hold him up, as if Jared had taken them all and stripped Jensen of them as well as his flesh and left him bare for the world to see.  
   
“Jensen!”  
   
He shouted directly in the man’s ear, hoping that just that one word would wake his friend up.  
   
“Jensen!!”  
   
He didn’t know where to touch, what part of Jensen’s body was safe to put his hands on, so he settled them on Jensen’s arms, sat on the floor behind his friend and held those biceps like they were the only part of Jensen’s body and nothing else existed.  
   
He was carefully not touching Jensen’s back with his chest but it was a battle against his own muscles to not let his friend sag against him, a battle he needed to win no matter what. Jensen’s backside was so hot, it felt like he was sitting too close to the kitchen stove and he didn’t want to add more pain to what he had already inflicted today.    
   
“Jensen.”  
   
He whispered while pulling the shirt out of Jensen’s mouth; carefully, slowly with steady fingers that kept slipping through his friend’s spit.  
   
The fabric was soaking wet from Jensen’s saliva, some blood and tears and sweat but when he opened Jensen’s mouth to look at the damage, he could see that the tongue was alright, teeth all there and nothing was bitten through. The vomit spilled out from behind the shirt when he dropped it on the floor and he was grateful that Jensen hadn’t choked on it, that he had been still so conscious that he had lowered his head and just let it all run out of him.  
   
“Good, ‘s good.” He said to himself and took a hold of Jensen’s cheeks that were covered with tears and sweat, cleaning them as best as he could with his bare hands. The face was the only place on his friend’s body he was sure didn’t hurt. Too much.  
   
“Jensen, damn it, wake up!”  
   
The man’s eyes were still closed, lips parted, chest working with shallow breaths and a wheezing sound coming from his mouth.  
His pants were soiled with blood and piss and vomit, but they would have to take care of that later.  
   
Because in the chaos that was ruling the square… Jared had only his body and cloak to protect Jensen from anyone coming too close.  
   
He wrapped the cloak around Jensen, shielding him from everything and everyone and whistled through his teeth.    
   
“Hold on, man.”  
   
He whistled again and grinned at the sound of a horse running with all its strength and speed.  
   
The black horse rounded a corner and went straight towards them, mane dancing and tail swinging. It was a sight to behold and it even made some men stop running to look at it.  
   
Impal… people knew the horse, talked about how it was bred in Hell but how Hell didn’t want it because it was too bloodthirsty even for that Godless place, and so it had landed in the hands of their whipping man.  
   
Jared always laughed at such stories, because there wasn’t a horse sweeter and kinder than Impal was. His boy would never even hurt a fly, not on purpose anyway.  
   
“Impaaaaaal!”  
   
He yelled, making Jensen twitch against his chest, probably the vibrations wiggling their way into his friend.  
   
He gripped the man’s lolling head and raised it up to his eyes, wanting to see if Jensen was with him: “Jensen, you awake?”  
   
No answer from the chapped lips.  
   
“Jensen…”  
   
Impal stopped right in front of them, rising onto his hind legs, begging to be ridden.  
   
“Down! Side!” Jared yelled and the horse turned, showing him his left side, making it easier to lift Jensen up and slide him across the horse’s broad back.  
   
He knew no harm would come to the horse, standing like this in the middle of a battle. No one would dare to even look at it, and shooting an arrow at it?  
People were too afraid they’d be dragged to Hell before the horse would even notice he’d been shot.  
   
He climbed up behind Jensen, grabbed hold of the man and then Impal’s reigns and kicked the horses sides, urging him to run.  
   
“Go!!”  
   
Carefully, he bent Jensen forward so his chest was touching the horse’s mane, grabbed his lifeless arms and tried to wrap the cold, motionless fingers around the reigns at Impal’s head. In case Jensen should wake, he’d have something to cling to should Jared be too distracted to tighten his hold at once.

  
   


  
   
They rode, leaving the chaos that spread through the square behind, leaving the last screams of the people behind and Jared knew they’d never come back here again. They had other things to do.  
   
His heart felt lighter, his hands less shaky. He felt… happy.  
   
Happy.  
   
He hadn’t been happy since… the last time he'd seen Jensen.  
   
 _His hands had been raised up in front of his chest, placating: “You have to stay, Jensen. You have to, alright? There’s,” he took a deep breath, “there’s no ‘no’  here, you understand that? You have to stay, hide yourself until the time’ll come, and I’ll… I’ll go learn.”_  
   
 _Jensen’s eyes crinkled in their corners, a frown disappearing as fast as it had come: “’m not leaving you to go alone to Dean Morgan’s, are you stupid?”_  
   
 _Jared swallowed: “You have to, this land, the people…”_  
   
 _“The people are stupid, the follow just about any fool with a sword, they are like rats, Jared. People are like rats, scavengers… why would I save them? Why would we save them?”_  
   
 _Jared shook his head: “This is your destiny!!! This is our destiny!!”_  
   
 _“No, destiny can go,” he pointed to the lake on his left side, “and drown in the Lash’as … it can go and drown, Jared,” he shook his head “I don’t care.”_  
   
 _“Jensen… are you,” he squinted his eyes and lowered his voice into a whisper, looking at Jensen’s eyes, “scared?”_  
   
 _Jensen shot out “No!” and then seemed to want to sink into the ground, because the answer was too fast and Jared wasn’t an idiot._  
   
 _“You are,” Jared laughed, “you are actually scared. Of what?”_  
   
 _Jensen was silent for a long time, head hanging heavily down, looking at the small snow-white pebbles of the Lash’as’ shore._  
   
 _Jared took a step closer: “Hey… what?”_  
   
 _Jensen raised his head and looked directly into Jared and he knew that his eyes made Jensen confess his deepest, darkest secrets if he wanted to or not: “Loosing you… ‘m scared of that. I can’t lose you, you’re my best friend. You…”_  
   
 _“I’ll be there, you know that, right? It’s our destiny. Yours_ and _mine.”_  
   
 _Jensen shook his head: “I don’t care. I don’t… ”_  
   
 _“Jensen, destiny… it doesn’t take no for an answer too well, you and I… we know that.”_  
   
 _“I know…”_  
   
 _“I’ll be there, you know that too. Remember that, okay? I won’t leave you alone. I promise I’ll be there.”_  
   
 _They both stood on the edge of the lake, watching tiny ripples form on the soothingly blue surface._  
   
 _“’m scared of… the whipping part of all this too.” He whispered onto the floor, flinching._  
   
 _“Jensen… trust me. The whip… the magic I have in me, even right now… I won’t let you die, I won’t let you out of my sight.”_  
   
 _“How screwed up is this?”_  
   
 _“What? Me having to spill your blood?”_  
   
 _“Yes, that.”_  
   
 _Jared sighed: “I know.”_  
   
 _They rested their eyes on the lake and the mountains for a long time that day, before Jensen cleared his throat and simply said: “Alright.”_  
   
 _Jared stepped closer to his friend and put his hand on his shoulder, squeezing it: “I’ll be there, just trust me. When the time comes, I’ll be there.”_  
   
 _Jensen nodded: “Shit.”_  
   
That had been years ago, when Jared had been able to sneak from the castle for a few days to go get more supplies.  
   
He came back with a new whip and a head full of stories of two heroes, born to save the land from the darkness that had covered it a long time ago. Born to sacrifice themselves for the greater good; Jensen to spill his blood and Jared to be the one to spill it.  
   
The hardest thing he’d had to do that day was leave Jensen alone with the old masters of Lake Lash’as… alone so that Jensen would be able to learn, learn more about his own destiny.  
   
Jared’s plan had been already on its way… from squire to knight, to the King’s whipping man.  
It had been all going like it was planned to go from the very beginning of time.  
   
He hadn’t seen Jensen for years upon years; no news of him, no news for ages.  
   
And then he’d heard about Jensen being caught, had seen him in the dungeon and he’d known… destiny had said _now_.

  
   


  
   
And now Jensen was with him again. Jensen’s blood had been spilled and he had spilled it, with the right whip and thus setting the plan into motion. No way of stopping it now. No way of stopping the tide.   
   
He pulled himself closer to his friend, wanting to hide him inside himself and never let him go, but he couldn’t. Jensen’s back was an image that would send a grown man screaming and he didn’t want to touch it, didn’t want for Jensen to hurt more than he already did. But he wanted to cover the bleeding flesh from the stinging cut of the wind.  
   
Impal was fast, too fast for his own good, but Jared knew that the horse just wanted to run free and who was he to stop it.  
   
There was a sudden itch at the back of his neck, a sharpness that made him skip a breath, making his hair curl even further and when he chanced a glance behind his back, he saw King Dean Morgan’s head roll off his body.  
   
He turned back around, hiding Jensen deeper into his cloak, deeper into the darkness, wrapping his friend into his heat.  
   
He smiled.  
   
Freedom.  
   
Sure King Dean Morgan was at the very bottom of the darkness that spread through the land, but he being the first to fall...  
   
… it was hope. Hope that others would fall too.

  
   


  
   
They were almost out of the town, almost to the gates of the town’s wall, when Impal rose on his hind legs and kicked at a man’s head… a man that crossed his path suddenly.    
The man was dead before he even saw the horse.  
   
Jared hoped that the man would be the very last innocent life he took. He knew there would be others, but they wouldn’t be innocent.  

  
   


  
   
There was no one guarding the gates, the guards had probably run to the town’s square to help and the gates were open, just waiting for them to ride through.  
   
And they did with as much speed as Impal could give.

  
   


  
   
Freedom was a white, pebbly road that curled left into the forest and the smell of the woods hit Jared hard on his chest, making him lean forward and grin down at Jensen’s head.  
   
“We made it.”

**TBC...**


	6. Chapter 6

The ground trembled underneath his feet; little shocks that traveled up his tiny legs, up through his whole tiny body, causing the piece of food to drop from his mouth. He looked up from the nut in his little hands, spotting a horse that was darker than the darkest of night, thundering along the path in the forest. It was so fast he dropped the nut and couldn’t stop staring. The horse’s croup was covered by a black cloak, its sides flapping in the wind, swinging up ‘n’ down with every step, hitting tree twigs, breaking them like hail sometimes does. The horse’s bushy tail was swinging in the air, the rider pressed so closely to the horses back… it seemed that they were one. One entity galloping through the forest.  
   
He knew they were one; both born of magic, created by the brightest blinding light ages ago, way before his time.  
   
He knew the reason the rider was pressed so close to the horse’s back. There was a precious cargo he was protecting, a precious someone who would save them all.  
   
The squirrel chattered, raising its little front paws up in the air, the nut lying forgotten on the leafy ground.  
   
Freedom.  
   
The blood had been spilled.  
   
Finally.

  
   


  
   
Jared felt the leather reigns in his hands slipping from his grasp, felt Impal move his head, telling him to just let go already. That he and Jensen were safe, safe with him leading the way, to just trust him.  
   
He could feel the power Impal had over him, he felt how the horse galloped to their destination and he knew that his boy would get them there. He wished he could talk to Impal, but he wasn’t that strong yet. Maybe soon, though.  
   
He let go of the reigns, closing his burning eyes; the wind was sharp and tiredness was already starting to spread through him making him ache deep down in the marrow of his bones. He wanted to rest, just for one minute. Just one minute of sleep, but before he could slip into dreams a soft voice stopped him, pulling him back to the world.  
   
“J’r’d”?  
   
He snapped his eyes open: “Jensen…”  
   
And that’s when the man that had been lying motionless before him for hours… started to scream. Howling with pain, the sound so piercingly deep Jared gripped Impal’s reigns and tugged, trying to stop him, but the horse wasn’t having it.  
   
He kept on running, not lowering its speed even with a screaming, trashing man on his back, not even when the man’s fists were pounding into his flanks, not even when the sound of the man howling made his ears hurt.  
   
He couldn’t stop now. Not now. Not so close to where destiny wanted these two men.  
   
Not so close.

  
   


  
   
“Jensen!! Stop, hold on, easy!!! Jensen!!”

“Impal, stop!!! STOP!!”  
   
“Jensen, enough!!! Stop!! Jensen!!!”  
   
No one was listening to him. Impal acted like he’d gone deaf in the last three minutes and Jensen… Jared knew Jensen was in pain, he knew, he did, so help him, but he had to make Jensen stop.  
   
“Ackles!!!”  
   
The screams faded into whimpers and a few sobs that Jared knew Jensen wasn’t able to stop. No man would be able to stop them. The pain had a mind of its own and Jared knew in just how much pain his friend was in.  
   
He wished he could help him. Wished there was something he could do.  
   
“Jensen, easy!!”  
   
He yelled over the roar of wind and the sound of his flapping cloak.  
   
“J’rrr’dhh…”  
   
He lowered his voice, knowing that Jensen would be able to hear him even through the wind and Impal’s hooves hitting dead leaves: “’m here… we’re safe. I got you, I got you, Jensen. It’s done. ’s done.”  
   
“H’lp m’hhh…”  
   
Jared wanted to help Jensen, he did, but there was nothing he could do. Nothing. Not yet.  
   
“I will, I promise, I swear, just hold on.”  
   
The whimpers and hitching sobs didn’t stop, they only got louder and louder until Jensen was moaning and groaning, broken sounds of agony slipping from deep in his chest until he couldn’t hold them in anymore and he screamed again, screamed until he was dry-heaving. Jared let go of Impal’s reigns again, trusting his horse to get them where they needed to be, grabbed Jensen’s sides, feeling fire hot skin on his palms, slippery with sweat… he squeezed his fingers around Jensen’s ribs and held on.  
   
“Jensen!! Hold on, please, just hold on! Pleasepleaseplease…”

  
   


  
   
Jensen was on fire. Wind all around him, soft mane under him, Jared’s voice in his ear and his back was fire.  
There was no pain, he was too far gone to feel pain; but he knew it would sneak up on him later but he was too far away for it to catch him now.  
   
There was just ice cold fire, like getting icicles sewn into his skin. It was too much, the numbness spreading all over him, the ice making his skin try to shrink into nothingness. He was falling into a hole, where fire and ice would devour him alive.  
   
He wanted to open his eyes, but couldn’t, not fully, because the world was a blurry image of too fast moving pictures, the dusk light stabbing his eyes all the way into his head…  
   
… he gagged and let go. Just like Jared had told him. Just let go.  
   
He would apologize to Impal later for puking all over him.

  
   


  
   
“Whoa, whoa, Jensen… easy, come on.”  
He tightened the hold he had on Jensen, hot fingers on hot, slick skin and let the man puke whatever was left in him, which was nothing by now.  
   
Just air and spit that looked suspiciously pink.  
   
“Jensen we’re nearly there. We’ll stop soon, just…”  
He didn’t know what to say. There was nothing to be said.  
   
Everything was happening as it should, events uncurling, pushing them both towards their fate, but there wasn’t a script that came with all that. No words to be learned, no touches, nothing.  
   
They were all alone between one event and the next.  
   
Jared leaned down closer to his friend’s head, whispered: “Hold on.” and kicked Impal’s sides: “Faster boy, faster!”

  
   


  
   
The evening was bright red with lines of orange spilling from the dying sun. And with the sun slowly setting behind the pointy peaks of the mountains, it was becoming colder and colder.  
Impal snorted, white steam coming out of his nostrils while shifting from one leg to the other, standing forgotten by the entrance to the cave… apple’s juice running out of his mouth. He knew that when the cold of the night would truly hit, he’d be welcome in the cave, but for now… he ate his apples, grazed at some grass, pushing his ears closer to his head trying to ignore the sounds coming from the cave.  
   
Jensen’s voice could carry for miles and he thought it was a good thing; a man leading men into battle needed a strong, deep, booming voice to yell commands.  
   
But right now… the piercing screams were really starting to hurt his ears.

  
   


  
   
“Hey, hey, hey… calm down, calm down.” He stroked the back of Jensen’s arm, the only place the man had mumbled that it didn’t hurt.  
   
“You good?”  
   
“H’rtsss…”  
   
Jensen muttered squirming on the bear-skin he was lying on, gripping its fur with trembling fingers. It was soft and warm underneath his chest and stomach, itchy at places he didn’t want to think about. He could feel he was naked again, just like he had been in the dungeon, but he felt safe.  
   
He was safe.  
   
But he hurt, the pain slowly starting to crawl all over him, digging its little claws inside his skin.  
   
“I know, I know… come on… one more.”  
   
“Don’t…”  
Before he could say more, Jared placed another piece of cloth on his back… they were all soaked with homemade apple vinegar and it burned. Burned so badly, like getting real fire splashed on him.  
   
He screamed until he finally passed out, because darkness was painless bliss as he’d come to find out, a long time ago.

  
   


  
   
Jared kept Jensen’s back covered with vinegar-soaked cloths for some time, just letting the acid do its job. It smelled horrible, the sharpness of vinegar and the copper of blood. The little fire he’d built needed more wood, the crackles of tiny branches disappearing in the flames his only company while his friend was sleeping.  
   
If whatever Jensen was doing could be called sleep. His whole body shook from time to time, fingers tugging at the fur, legs twitching, shoulders rising up ‘n’ down, little whimpers flowing out of his parted lips.  
   
It was either pain or nightmares, Jared couldn’t be sure, but he kept his palm on Jensen’s nape, squeezing it whenever a shudder rattled the man’s body, making Jensen groan.  
   
Impal had come in a while back, the night starting to get too cold even for him and now he stood by the wall, dozing off, shaking his tail, blowing air through his nostrils every once in a while.  
   
Jared really wished that his powers would be more powerful so that he would be able to talk to his horse.  
   
“You did good, Impal. You did very good, boy.”  
   
Impal looked at him and Jared could’ve sworn the horse smiled.

  
   


  
   
He removed the wet cloths that were hiding Jensen’s back from view and threw them into the fire along with Jensen’s soiled pants, which he’d removed as soon as he’d lowered the man down to the bear-skin, knowing that the fur would keep Jensen warm on his front. The butchered back was aflame anyway; Jensen would feel no cold there.  
   
The smell was starting to make him dizzy, the pungent scent making his head hurt, but he wouldn’t give in to the headache. Not when his friend was lying motionless before him.  
   
He just wished he could burn his hands too; they were stained with Jensen’s blood… and that was something no fire and no water would be able to erase. No matter what the prophecy said, no matter… Jensen’s blood would always be on him.  
   
He shook his head… thoughts like that would have to wait. Even if they would have to wait for eternity, but they would have to wait.    
   
He had to help Jensen now. Had to bring him back to the here and now, back to where he had to be.

  
   


  
   
He took another cloth and dipped it into water that he had mixed with salt… he’d do anything to make sure Jensen’s wounds would heal properly.  
   
_No infection, please, please… no infection._  
   
The orange glow from the fire made Jensen’s back look like the depths of hell he had seen pictures of in the books the monks had shown him once.  
   
Glowing red, valleys of wounds, some so deep he could see muscle being split in two… all the way to the bone.  
   
He did that.  
   
His hands stopped shaking.  
   
He did that, he hadn’t wanted to do it, but he did. He did what had to be done.  
   
So now, now he was gonna help Jensen. Help him heal and then they’d go save the world.

  
   


  
   
He ran the saltwater-soaked cloth all over Jensen’s back, down his sides, nape, shoulder blades, ribs… careful, slow, gentle slide of his hand over the raised ridges of the wounds.  
   
“J’red…”  
Jensen whimpered, probably in his sleep, Jared thought and continued to clean the wounds.  
   
“Jjj’red, fix meeee, pleassssse…”  
   
And then Jensen started to sob.

  
   


  
   
Jared leaned over, wiping sweat from the man’s left cheek, whispering: “I can’t… ‘m sorry.”  
   
“Pleeeeassse…”  
   
It wasn’t sweat Jared wiped away from Jensen’s cheek this time.

  
   


  
   
“I can’t fix this. When this’ll scar, then I’ll heal you. ‘m sorry.”  
   
Jensen howled in pain again before he passed out just as Jared was about to say: “You know I can’t.”

  
   


  
   
The next time Jensen woke up he mumbled: “Did my blood get on the ground?” _Is the land ready? Will it fight with us? Will the sun stop being so hot, will the night stop being so cold? Did the animals feel the land tremble and shake? Did the birds feel it too? Do they know it’s time? Do the lakes and the sea know too? Are the trees ready to help? The mountains? The rivers, too? The wind, will it help us too? Is the land ready?!_  
   
Jared whispered: “Yes, Jensen, yeah the land will help us fight.” and Jensen fell into sleep sighing: “Good.”

 

 

Jared sat on the hard ground by Jensen’s left side, his knees drawn up and spread wide; he had his elbows on his knees, keeping his arms supported while he cleaned the whip he had used on his friend… getting rid of all the blood that had dried up on its lash.  
   
It was a job he’d done a thousand times before; cloth clutched tightly in his hand, moving it down… always down towards the tip. The mechanics of it were soothing his mind, made him leap into a world of his own, a world where there was only one thing he had to do. Move the cloth down.  
   
There was no destiny, no prophecy, no war, no battles; no darkness… nothing else existed, but his whip and the cloth.

  
   


  
   
_You did right_ ; the runes glowing white on the whip’s handle whispered to him in a thousand voices…  
   
… _you did what had been written a long time ago and now it is done_.  
   
He shook his head: “Yeah, ’s done.”

  
   


  
   
Yes it was done. He had spilled the blood of a warrior that would free the people who had lived under hands of tyrants for centuries; he had spilled the blood onto the land that now got a taste of the man who would save it. He had done his part.  
   
And now there was no turning back, because destiny called for them to saddle up, grip their swords, daggers and bows and go free the country and its people from Kings who ruled with chopped heads on spears by their sides.  
   
All that was keeping him from doing exactly that, was Jensen not waking up.  
   
He just wanted Jensen to wake up.  
   
They had been in the cave for a week now. Seven days of Jensen yelling in his sleep for Jared, seven days of feverish mumblings coming from his friend’s mouth, seven days of watching Jensen’s back turning into red scars, seven days of holding Jensen’s arms so that the man didn’t turn on his back.  
   
Seven days of pure torture.

  
   


  
   
He sighed and returned to cleaning his whip.

  
   


  
   
_How do you feel, magic man_ ; the runes asked him.  
   
He startled for a second, lost in his own thoughts when the voices in his head - so familiar, but not Jensen’s – appeared. He looked down at the whip’s handle and saw the runes shine bright blue. He snorted and moved the wet cloth softly down towards the end of the whip again.  
   
“I feel… conflicted?”  
   
There was no point in lying to the runes, or concealing the truth in a million of complicated sentences. They would always come to the bottom of things eventually.  
   
_Explain to us_ ; the runes asked.  
   
He closed his eyes and leaned his head back, hitting Jensen’s thigh with the back of his head, feeling the muscle there tense and then relax, as if Jensen know who was touching him.  
   
“I know that I had to do this,” he spoke up to the cave’s ceiling, “I was trained for this, born for this, I just… I should’ve hated it, but I… liked it.”  
   
_Yes, we understand magic man_ ; the runes whispered.  
   
“No, I don’t think you do.”  
   
_Magic man, you were born for this, trained, you had to like it, otherwise you wouldn’t have done it_ ; the runes shone bright white again.  
   
“So, so me liking it… that’s not me, I mean, not who I am. I just liked it, because if I didn’t, I wouldn’t have done it? I don’t unde…”  
   
_Yes magic man, you had to like it, or else you wouldn’t have done it, destiny, magic man, made you pure, out of light, she knew what she was doing_ ; the runes shone green.  
   
“So, what you’re saying is that what I feel, the way I liked it, that’s not who I am, but just destiny’s way of making me do this?”  
   
_Yes, magic man_ ; the runes laughed; _are you of slow mind, magic man?_    
   
Jared scoffed: “Pfft, no, I’m just trying to understand.”  
   
_Yes, magic man, we understand_ ; the runes said.  
   
“I liked it, I did… whipping people, whipping Jensen… but destiny made me do it, made me like it… I don’t… I don’t like it anymore.”  
   
_Magic man, your soul is pure light_ ; the runes said.  
   
Jared leaned forward, covered his face with his free hand and breathed out: “’m not evil?”  
   
_You are light_ ; the runes said.  
   
“I feel evil.”  
   
_Destiny can be evil_ ; the runes said.  
   
He started to laugh out loud, the sound coming from somewhere deep inside of him, some place where he always stuffed everything he ever thought or felt and now, now that the runes told him the truth, he let it all bubble out to the surface.    
   
_What is so funny, magic man;_ the runes asked.  
   
“’s just… I thought all these years that I was evil for enjoying hurting people like that, but you tell me it was because destiny’s an evil bitch.”  
   
He laughed himself to sleep and pretended that the tears that ran down his cheeks were just tears of laughter.

  
   


  
   
The ninth day was dark. Outside the sun never peeked from behind the clouds and inside the cave, the fire seemed like it didn’t want to burn anymore.  
   
Impal was in his corner, sleeping and wagging his tail left and right, blowing air through his nostrils from time to time and reminding Jared that he wasn’t alone. That he’d never be alone.  
   
The runes had fallen silent a long time ago, even when he tried to talk to them, they never answered.  
   
The only noise in the cave was the crackling of the dying fire, Jensen’s light snores and ragged breathing; sometimes a small whimper escaped him, but that was that.  
   
It was lonely. It was quiet. And Jared loved it.  
   
It was just him and Jensen, even if his friend was more or less asleep all the time, but in the moments when Jensen was awake and coherent… those were the moments Jared loved.  
   
Just him and Jensen.  
   
Even when he himself fell asleep, waking up a short time after with a gasp and his shirt drenched with sweat… it was still only him and Jensen in the cave.  
   
There were no monsters, no Kings, no headless bodies and no flesh-less backs.  
   
It was just him and Jensen.

  
   


  
   
He poked at the fire and placed more wood on it, coughing a little when smoke rose up into the air, swimming before his eyes, before disappearing into nothingness.  
   
“Where are we?”  
   
Jensen’s voice was a shaky whisper, mouth squished to the bear skin, eyes closed tightly shut with remains of sleep and pain.  
   
Jared could see his friend trying to lift up his arms that were lying by his sides, but Jared was there in two long strides, catching them mid air.  
   
“Hey, hey, don’t move.”  
   
“Hurts…”  
   
“I know, but it’s healing… your back. It’s not bleeding anymore, ‘s starting to scar. Looks alright to me and when it’ll fully scar, I’ll fix it, okay?”  
   
“Know you will, just hurts… burns...,” he gasped, “sometimes, just… pulls,” he hissed, “shitshitshit...”  
   
“I know… just go back to sleep.”  
   
“Yeah…”  
   
And Jensen did.

  
   


  
   
The cave wasn’t anything special, just a cave with moss and fern everywhere, but it was shelter and it warmed up with the fire while the nights outside were freezing. The walls were covered with lush greenery and Jared had heard water dripping somewhere the first minute he had entered the cave and when he found the place, he couldn’t stop drinking it. It was cool down his throat and he was even able to wash his hands.  
   
He had often filled his purse with it and took it back to Jensen, trying to get the man to drink. He did, gulping down the water with such greed every time the purse hit his lips, Jared would’ve thought of it as sin, but… Jensen didn’t have a sinful bone in his body.

  
   


  
   
The cave was their fortress, hidden from everyone and everything; it had water, it had fire, it was warm and cozy and on the tenth day, Jensen woke up with his eyes clear, his back almost healed.  
   
Jared grinned. Maybe today, the sun would win over the clouds.

  
   


  
   
“I need to get up, I have to get up.” Jensen squeezed through gritted teeth, moving his arms to push himself up.  
   
“Alright, just… come on, let me help you.”  
He gripped his friend under his armpits and pulled him up slowly, sitting Jensen on the bear skin.  
   
“You feel okay?”  
   
“Feel ‘m gonna puke.”  
   
And he did. All over the ground, water and some bread Jared was able to get him to eat, splashed all over the rocky surface.    
   
“Don’t worry about it, come on, lie back down.”  
   
“Sorry.”  
   
The way Jensen looked up at him made Jared want to puke too.

  
   


  
   
The day went by with the smell of a rabbit cooking over the fire.  
   
“We have to leave.”  
   
“I know.”  
   
“Jensen’re you up for this?”  
   
“We have to get to the lake, I know.”  
   
“Impal… he’ll get us there fast.”  
   
“I know, that horse’s fast as lightning.”  
   
“Yup.”  
   
Jensen chuckled and grimaced when the skin on his back tightened up again: “Remember when I named him?”  
   
“I remember pushing you into the lake.”  
   
“Ha, yeah… but you like the name now.”  
   
“’s okay.”  
   
“Liar.”  
   
“Get some sleep.”  
   
Their bellies were full of rabbit’s stew – which was just water and coked rabbit, but it was food – the fire was burning strong, Impal was outside getting himself some food and Jared sneaked his way under Jensen on the bear skin, getting his friend to lie on top of him, head on chest.  
   
“You alright?” Jensen asked while adjusting his sweaty stomach across Jared’s groin; the fabric of Jared’s pants scratchy on his skin.  
   
“Yeah, ‘m alright.” he whispered.  
   
“You sure?”  
   
“’m sure.”  
   
And he was. With what the runes told him and with Jensen’s warm weight on top of him like this, he was alright.  
   
He was ready to take on anything. Anyone.  
   
He covered Jensen up with his cloak as best as he could and they fell asleep with the fire’s heat all over their bodies, leading them gently into the world of dreams.  
   
And this time, the horrors of the world didn’t find Jared in his dreams. This time, with his right hand in Jensen’s hair and his left one holding the man close to his chest… his dreams were bright and funny.  

  
   


  
   
“You ready to get up today?”  
   
It was the eleventh day, and Jensen looked better. His eyes were green, his skin wasn’t pale anymore, his freckles didn’t stand out anymore, the sweat had dried up on his warm skin.  
   
His back was still a puzzle of wounds that would probably never make a whole picture again, but it looked better. The criss-crossed lines were healing well, some of them already forming nice, healthy scars.  
   
“Yes, yeah let’s try this again.”  
   
“Great, come on.”  
   
Jared stood back, but still close enough just in case Jensen decided to nose dive. But the man was steady on his ass and even steadier on his feet, even if he was hunched over like an old man.  
   
“Can you straighten up?”  
   
“I uh…” he looked up at Jared’s eyes, “‘s gonna hurt ain’t it?”  
   
“Won’t know unless you try.”  
He smiled and smiled even wider when he saw Jensen smirk.  
   
“Alright…”  
   
He started to straighten his back, slow movements, praying that the wounds wouldn’t break.  
   
“You’re doing great.”  
   
“’s easy for you to say… “ he panted out and tried to ignore the sweat running into his eyes.  
   
“Yeah well, easy does it.”  
   
Easy really did do it.  
   
“Okay, great, now, I have pants for ya, you think you’ll be able to put them on? I think we should wait a few more days before putting a shirt on ya, but yeah… pants?”  
   
Jensen grinned: “Easy does it, right?”  
   
“Yeah, easy does it.”  
   
Easy really did do it. Again.

  
   


  
   
Impal was waiting, shifting from leg to leg, nervous and excited about being able to run again.  
   
He was perfectly still when Jared helped Jensen onto his back, and when Jensen fingers stroked his head, he yawned.  
   
“Feels good, huh boy?”  
   
Impal huffed and Jensen laughed.  
   
“You good?” Jared asked while covering Jensen with his cloak, hiding his friend’s body inside of the warm cocoon.  
   
Jensen didn’t nod, he just sank back into Jared’s body, grimacing when his bare back hit the rough fabric of Jared’s shirt and yelled: “Go, Impal, heeya!!”  
   
And Impal ran.

  
   


  
   
The lake was just as Jared remembered. Huge and beautiful, with a shore where the sand was so white it hurt his eyes, where the tiny pebbles always got so hot they burned his bare feet and the trees surrounding the lake were tall and swinging in the wind.  
   
Jared remembered all the fish that he and Jensen caught when they were kids and ate them raw sitting on boulders on the north side of the lake. He smacked his lips together, remembering the taste. And all the slimy frogs they caught with their bare hands and cooked them over the fire… those were the years.  
   
The lake was home and it would always be home and one day it would be his grave. His and Jensen’s.  
   
He nudged Impal forward, allowing the horse to walk in the shallow water where the blue, cold water met the beach.

  
   


  
   
The old masters were waiting, lined up along the shore, each wearing a long dark red cloak with a silver leaf holding the two sides together at their necks. Their longswords were hanging by their thighs; long, sharp, powerful, all forged in the fires of Lo’pa, fires that never burned out.  
   
The ends of their cloaks shifted in the fresh wind from the mountains, and they all bowed down when Impal stopped before them.  
   
The sight was family and Jared whispered in Jensen’s ear: “I’m home.”  
   
Jensen nodded: “Yeah, yeah you’re finally home.”

  
   


  
   
The old masters were born and raised - chosen by destiny herself – to help Jensen with his training; they taught him how to handle a sword, how to throw knives, how to handle the daggers, how to use the bow, how to hunt and track, how to fight with his hands and legs and his whole body, they taught him how to kill with a snap of his fingers.  
   
And they were there for Jared too; to help him how to use his magic, how to see that he is light among all the darkness.  
   
They were old and they were young, and they possessed knowledge of old ages, of an era that had long ago stopped existing, replaced by – as Jared liked to call it – age of gloom.  
   
Jensen had laughed at that one, but he couldn’t hide the fact that Jared was right.  
   
What the land was… was gloom. It was as if it was caught in a never ending eclipse; murkiness that spread like oil all over the land, creeping its way into people, into animals, trees, waters.  
   
But the duskiness never crept into the old masters. They were wise, strong and swift with their minds… they were family and they were warriors that would stand by Jared and Jensen’s side, until their very last breath.

  
   


  
   
Jared saw that all the men were there, all alive and well. He nodded to them, a greeting without words. They had all survived the attack… no, rescue mission. He would always think of it as rescue mission… at the castle.  
   
One of the masters stepped forward, a young man, not yet thirty and gripped Impal’s reigns.  
   
“You came.”  
There was awe in his voice, awe and respect and his eyes were bright blue in the late morning sun.  
   
“We’re here.” Jared said and hopped down from the horse, helping Jensen down too.  
   
“We have been waiting.”  
   
“I know.”  
   
“Do you both wish to rest for a while or…”  
   
“We need today. Tomorrow we can leave.”  
   
“Good, as you wish.”  
   
The man took Impal from them, led the horse to have some water and food, something they both wanted too, but before he could leave, before they all could leave the shore Jared asked: “Who killed Dean Morgan?”  
   
“Me, Sir.”  
An older man broke formation and kneeled down before Jared, his red cloak hiding him completely, only a mess of long black hair visible to Jared.  
“Ariss, what have I told you?”  
   
“Uh, never to kneel before ya, Sir?”  
   
Jared smiled and placed his hand on Ariss’ shoulder pulling the man up: “Exactly.”  
   
“I’m sorry, Sir.”  
   
“You don’t have to call him Sir, either, ya know?”  
Jensen said, leaning heavily on Jared’s left side.  
   
“Yes, Sir. I mean yes, alright Jensen, as you say.”  
   
“Good man, now… I want me some beer and some meat.”  
   
“Will bring some right away, Jensen.”

  
   


  
   
The feast was huge; meat and wine and ale in abundance. It was too much and not enough.  
   
And when it ended… the food started to taste like rotten eggs in Jared’s stomach and he knew it was exactly the same with Jensen.  
   
Dread.  
   
Expectations.  
   
Blood dripping from their longswords; the stench of death and the promise of a better life.  
   
Destiny.  
   
All that and it all rested on them. As it was written.

  
   


  
   
The cottage that had been Jensen’s home for years was small, but cozy. There was a low bed pushed against a wall, a table with two chairs in the corner and a fireplace in front of which a black cat purred in its sleep.  
   
“Vera, wake up.” Jensen said and the cat raised her head, blinking her sleepy bright green eyes at them.     
   
“Vera,” Jared walked towards her, crouching down to stroke her silky fur, “you been a good girl, kept your eyes on Jensen like I told ya, huh?”  
   
The cat’s purring got louder; _I did, magic man, just like you said, I kept my word and I felt you keep yours._  
   
“Yeah, girl, I kept my word.”  
   
_Good, good, now I want to go back to sleep_ ; the cat purred into Jared’s mind.  
“Sleepy-head.”  
   
  _‘s the only pleasure I have in life, don’t mess with it_ ; the cat purred and closed her eyes, sinking her claws in Jared’s hand.  
   
“Okay, alright, jeez, grumpy are we?”  
   
“Oh man, are you talking to the cat again?”  
   
“Erm, no.”  
   
Jensen rolled his eyes. Jared and his animals. He was dreading the day when the magic in Jared would become so strong that his friend would be able to talk to Impal… because he just knew Impal would be just as talkative as Jared.  
   
All those long rides and the two of them chit chatting away…  
   
… shit.

  
   


  
   
“Hey, me and Impal will never ignore you.”  
   
“What?”  
   
Was Jared reading his mind now?  
   
“It’s all over your face… what you were thinking… so yeah.”  
   
Jensen groaned. Gods help him.

  
   


  
   
It was almost midnight and sleep was something they both needed, but there was something that Jensen needed more. Something they both needed more than sleep.  
   
Jared whispered: “You ready?” and stepped closer to where Jensen was looking down at the bed, covered with rabbit skins. Warm and fluffy. He smiled and nodded lying down on his stomach, putting his scarred back to Jared’s eyes.  
   
When Jared’s fingers touched the first scar, Jensen jumped up and groaned. It felt… good. It felt right. It felt like he was invincible.  
   
“Feels good?”  
   
“Mhm…”  
   
Jared put his finger on a scar he found to be the easiest to see… a long scar running from Jensen’s right shoulder blade all the way down to his left side.  
   
“This one’s a long one.”  
   
“Leave it.”  
   
“You sure?”  
   
“Yeah, leave it.”  
   
“Alright.”  
   
He found another scar and ran his finger down it, all the way down to Jensen’s lower back, feeling the man shudder.  
   
He left nothing but smooth, warm skin behind.  
   
“Feels alright?”  
   
“Yeah.”  
Jensen moaned.  
   
Jared grinned.

  
   


  
   
When all the scars were healed, except for the longest of them, the one who would remind them of what they did and what they needed to do, when Jensen’s back was nothing but silky smooth skin just like it had been… before, Jared was hard as a rock and Jensen wasn’t any better.  
   
Jared lowered himself down, becoming a blanket for Jensen’s naked body, rubbing his hard cock in the space between Jensen’s ass cheeks… promising, taunting.  
   
He whispered into Jensen’s ear: “Wanna get inside you…” a lick across Jensen’s nape, “wanna feel you,” a kiss on the side of his neck, “… just wanna push myself inside you and never get out.”  
The head of his dick caught on the rim of his friend’s hole, making Jensen tense up: “No!”  
   
“Shh, I won’t, I won’t hurt you like that, I promise. I’ll take my time with you. Take tonight, hmm?”  
   
“Yeah, yeah…”  
   
“And hey, tomorrow Jensen…tomorrow we’ll ride out… go into battle. And we’ll win. I promise.”  
   
Jensen moaned and closed his eyes, relaxing his body into the rabbit skins, sinking his mind into the soft caresses of Jared’s hands and tongue and calming down his racing heart, because there was no fear in him anymore. Not with Jared there.  
   
Not with Jared always keeping his promises.  
   
They could do this. Save the land. Save its people. Together, they could do anything. They would be the storm coming 'cross the hills.  
   
  
**The End.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> P.S.1 That's where the story ends, but I wrote an ending after the official ending; if you want to read it, but if not, it's totally okay too. But be warned, it's bitter-sweet ... if that makes sense. Click on NEXT CHAPTER or stay right here :)
> 
> P.S.2 'vera' is a word in my mother tongue for 'faith' :)
> 
> P.S.3 Thank you everyone so much for reading and commenting and sticking with me and the story until the end! :)


	7. Chapter 7

When Jared’s old and wrinkled body hit the bottom of Lake Lash’as, his long gray hair spreading over the muddy ground, the sand waited a second for Jensen to join him, falling slowly on top of his friend, in a lovers embrace …

... and then the mud lifted and covered them both, hiding them from the warm sunny days and warm nights and the new beautiful age that had arrived.

 

**The End (for real)**


End file.
